Project Guidelines

Our goal is to assess the quality of forests in Nashville using invasive species as a gauge of forest health. We are asking community members to make observations of forests near them and assess whether the site contains invasives. There is a project list associated with this project of common invasives found in the Nashville area for guidance when making observations. For every observation of an invaded site we ask participants to observe an additional non invaded site and vice versa.

When making observations, we ask users to document the following:

Photos of the forest in question.
We ask participants to take a total of 5 photos of each site location. The first of a chosen plant species (invasive plant if the site is invaded or native plant if it is not invaded), and then 4 photos of the site with the camera pointed in each cardinal direction.

Coordinates of your location.
If your geoprivacy is open the location will automatically be recorded by iNaturalist.

Whether the site is invaded or not invaded.
This question will be prompted by iNaturalist as an observation field when adding an observation to the project.

The density of the invaded plants.
This question will be prompted by iNaturalist as an observation field when adding an observation to the project. You will have “none, low, medium, or high” as options. Photo examples of each are available in this journal post.

Posted on August 7, 2020 04:16 PM by samom615